B-29 Airplane's Story Unfolding at Lakeland Linder Airport

After a two-hour wait in the sun, Yoshitaka Hamada grabbed his camera bag and set up his equipment Tuesday on the tarmac of Lakeland Linder Regional Airport as the B-29 Superfortress rolled in.

By Bill RuftyTHE LEDGER

LAKELAND | After a two-hour wait in the sun, Yoshitaka Hamada grabbed his camera bag and set up his equipment Tuesday on the tarmac of Lakeland Linder Regional Airport as the B-29 Superfortress rolled in.The massive aircraft from World War II is the star attraction of the Commemorative Air Force's Air Power History Tour, which is hosting displays of historic planes on the south side of the terminal through Sunday.Hamada, a photo intern for The Ledger, said he was excited about taking pictures of the aircraft. The B-29 was the type of aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and later Nagasaki. Hamada is from Hiroshima.His grandmother told him the story about how one morning her father, Hamada's great-grandfather, got the family up and said he had a premonition and the family had to move.At his insistence, they moved 60 to 80 miles away to a rural area. Seven days later, on Aug. 6, 1945, a B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, causing the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people.The aircraft at Lakeland Linder is named FiFi. The Enola Gay is on permanent display at the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The B-29 was the most advanced aircraft of the time. The four-engine pressured bomber could reach an altitude of 31,850 feet (six miles) and fly at speeds of up to 350 mph. Although it is forever connected with the two atomic bombs dropped over Japan, it was used for many bombing attacks. It had eight .50-caliber machine guns in remote-controlled turrets, two .50-caliber machine guns and one 20 mm cannon in a tail turret and could carry up to 20,000 pounds of bombs. Its range was 3,700 miles, making it ideal for the Asian Theater.Hiroshima is almost 69 years removed from the bombing, but schoolchildren are still taught its history, Hamada said. Still, as time goes on, memories fade.Near Aug. 6 each year, kindergarten children are taught about the dropping of the bomb. In elementary school, students see an animated film about the bombing. High school students listen to surviving victims of the bombing."It is getting hard to remember. I guess my attitude was 'OK, I get it. A-bomb.' I didn't see the big deal," Hamada said.But that schoolboy attitude from when he was growing up in a suburb of Hiroshima changed on the tarmac at Lakeland Linder."I didn't think much of it until I went inside of the bomber. I saw the map laid out with my town on it, and I thought, 'Wow, that really hit me,'?" he said. "Compared to before I went into the plane, that was kind of surreal.""My grandmother said they called it (the B-29) the Silver Devil."Hamada doesn't dwell on it.Hamada, 26, lives in the suburbs of Hiroshima. He occasionally saw the bombed-out building left unrepaired at ground zero. He can barely remember his grandmother's stories. After the bomb was dropped, the family waited months and then moved back to their city. His grandmother was married shortly after."My view may be the minority. People in the United States think people there hate them," said Hamada, who graduated from the University of Florida in December. "But there is no hatred. We want people to understand the dangers of ever going to war with nuclear weapons."The Commemorative Air Force display also includes a Stearman biplane of the type used to train American and British pilots at Lodwick Field in Lakeland during the war, a C-45 twin engine passenger aircraft from World War II, an SB2c "Helldiver" used as a training aircraft by the Air Force and the Navy, and a Skyrider fighter bomber from the Vietnam era.

[ Bill Rufty can be reached at bill.rufty@theledger.com or 802-7523. ]